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  • Jan 30, 2007

    Dreaming in Code

    Software projects like Microsoft's Windows Vista are notoriously late getting to market. Salon.com co-founder Scott Rosenberg has a new book on the perils of software programming. He talks with Kai Ryssdal.

  • Smart companies can use environmental strategy to their advantage. Yale professor Daniel Esty tells us which companies are making it work — and there are some surprises on the list.

  • Duke University professor Joel Fleishman says that despite their good intentions most foundations have plenty of problems. He talks with Kai Ryssdal about his new book on the subject.

  • It's the book that made free trade famous: "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith. But who's got time to read its 900-plus pages? Humorist P.J. O'Rourke did and wrote his own book about it. He talks with Kai Ryssdal.

  • Neatness might not be so virtuous — or profitable — after all. David Freedman talks about his new book on the topic, "A Perfect Mess," with host Kai Ryssdal.

  • Historian Tom Wheeler talks with host Kai Ryssdal about how President Lincoln adapted to the telegraph to speed communications, and quickly came to understand the medium's limitations.

  • Nov 21, 2006

    Battling the AK-47

    Host Kai Ryssdal talks to Larry Kahaner, author of a book about the AK-47. Kahaner explains the past and present significance of this deadly weapon — and why the Pentagon doesn't use it.

  • Acclaimed novelist Thomas Pynchon won't be doing any publicity for his first book in nine years, but marketing "Against the Day" should be no problem. Lisa Napoli explains.

  • Andrew Carnegie spent half a lifetime amassing great wealth, and the other half trying to give it away. Host Kai Ryssdal speaks with author David Nasaw about his biography of the famed businessman and philanthropist.